I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,113

Charlie.

‘Don’t do this again to me, Charlie,’ said Robin, arms akimbo. ‘I nearly had a fit yesterday.’

Charlie looked pale in the harsh morning light, paler than he had yesterday.

‘Charlie?’

Robin nudged him gently. Still nothing. He put his ear to Charlie’s face, listening for his breath. Charlie gave a snore loud enough to wake himself up; Robin jumped a mile.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Charlie. ‘You blocked my bloody airways.’

‘What are you doing just… lying there?’

‘I was sleeping, Robin. That thing people usually do in beds.’

‘Well you’ve no right to sleep so soundly,’ said Robin. ‘I wish I’d checked to see if there was a defibrillator in this place.’

‘Bit of an over-reaction if I may say. I hardly need one of those to—’

‘I meant for me, you old fool. My heart stopped. It’s going like the clappers now mind. And it’s totally out of sync.’

‘I was dreaming about something deep and significant,’ said Charlie, shuffling to a sitting position.

‘What?’ Robin asked.

‘About the meaning of life. About what the point of it is. In my dream I was lecturing to a big group of people.’

‘So, Professor Hawking, what were you telling everyone from your pulpit?’

‘Lectern,’ Charlie corrected him. ‘And I was telling them that there isn’t any point.’

Robin took that in, then gave his head a rattle.

‘Well, I’d wave goodbye to the Nobel prize for philosophy if I were you.’

‘No, Robin, I really think I know what it is,’ said Charlie, excitedly. ‘At this point in time, everyone on the planet is equal. We all have the here and the now, just like Luke said on Christmas Eve, it’s in the bag. The past is gone, the future is always beyond our grasp and heaven is a mere nice bonus if it exists, so I think the point of life is… that there isn’t a point. It just… is. We should accept that and enjoy the moments we’re in. I think we’d all be a lot happier, if we just embraced the here and now a bit more, don’t you?’

Robin absorbed the words before speaking.

‘We’ve always embraced the here and the now, you and I, Charlie.’

‘We got it right, Robin,’ said Charlie.

* * *

‘We have a signal. I’d better ring Ben,’ Bridge announced, as her phone buzzed just as they were about to head downstairs with their cases. An email came through, then another, then another. Lots of them, and texts and notifications from various social media sites. She felt them already start to drain her soul, so made an early new year’s resolution to spend more time with her phone switched off. Mary immediately rang her tearful mother, who was still abroad and beyond relieved to know that her baby was not part of a glacier on the North Yorkshire Moors or buried under an avalanche. Then Mary gave her brothers and sister very quick calls to tell them she was safe and would be home in a couple of hours and she’d ring them again then.

‘They were all a bit sobby,’ said Mary. ‘Nice to be missed.’

‘Yes. They must have been very concerned about you,’ said Bridge.

‘Did you get through to Ben? He must have been out of his head wondering where you were,’ Mary asked her.

‘He worries like a mother hen. Obviously not my mother because she doesn’t give a cat’s fuck.’

‘Must be lovely having a fiancé who cares and worries about you,’ said Mary. ‘I might find out one day.’

Bridge gave a hefty sigh. ‘Mary, I should have told you before, Ben’s not my fiancé. He’s a neighbour. I’ll fill you in with the detail when we’re driving. Stupid to pretend otherwise. Pathetic, I know, before you say anything.’

‘It’s not,’ said Mary. ‘Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to protect yourself. Have you ever seen the inside of a Dalek, they’re all mush.’

Bridge chuckled. If ever there was a suitable parallel, it was that.

She had some work to do on herself yet, she realised. Luke wouldn’t have lied and invented a partner to save face. She was still a work in progress, but she’d get there.

* * *

Downstairs in the bar, Luke and Jack were having coffee, toast and cheese. There was also a plate of mince pies on the table. The lounge was chilly and the inn looked different somehow, tired and shabby, as if it had aged overnight. The light reflecting in from the snow had been kinder than the watery sun, it seemed. The Christmas tree in the corner was